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CounterPunch
March 11,
2003
Liberals and War
Fighting Bush
with Only One Hand
By LENNI BRENNER
On 2/24, I attended a CUNY Democratic Party pep
rally, "Learning from Paul and Sheila Wellstone."
Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel introduced the procedings,
followed by Wellstone's campaign manager, Jeff Blodgett, Barbara
Ehrenreich of Democratic Socialists of America, John Nichols
for the Institute for Policy Studies and Bob Muehlenkamp, National
Co-Convenor of United StatesLabor Against War.
They uttered every "economic populist"
pious wish ever invented. Description of the entire meeting is
for a psychiatric journal, but Muehlenkamp's expectations, as
to what signatories of USLAW's statements may or may not do if
Bush wars without Security Council permission, should be known
throughout the antiwar camp.
"To say the least, the US Labor
movement is very cautious about addressing issues of foreign
policy and war and peace...[It' s a] cold war legacy... to oppose
the government is unpatriotic."
He estimated that the signatories represented
about 5 million US workers, 1/3rd of the labor movement. He expected
the AFL-CIO to call for more inspections, not oppose the war.
USLAW's sales pitch was "we are
in a war against terrorism, Hussein is a bad guy. He must be
disarmed... You can't reach out to trade union America and instead
say other things. You may feel good," etc.
But there is a built-in problem with
adapting to the union bureaucracy. The "hardest moment is
yet to come, and the madman starts this war anyway. We have to
decide at that moment what to do. The trade union movement in
this country is very patriotic. Its members are very patriotic.
We have to decide how to carry on the struggle. I think the lesson
that Paul would have taught is 'think politically and make connections
and swing back to the populist message'... If we can't stop this
war we stay together to stop them from doing it again."
From then to intermission, when I fled,
the gathering was a future music concert. Wellstone's "democratic
wing of the Democratic Party" will rally about a peace candidate
in the 2004 primaries, then beat Bush. There was no discussion
of what to do if Bush goes to war on his own, much less if he
gets UN approval. Naturally there was no discussion of how to
involve labor's ranks when some, many, most of USLAW's signatories
punk out, if war comes.
The audience, about 300, almost all white
in a city with a "minorities majority," mostly very
young or else veterans of one too many class struggles, wasn't
allowed to directly question the panel. You had to fill out a
card. Then the chair picked some and/or digested many into a
question. This gave the chair complete control of the temper
of the event, meaning that they evaded reality and comforted
themselves with their victory in 2004, when the party that armed
Afghanistan's fundamentalists ushers in perpetual world peace.
USLAW's paper legions may yet end up
looking good. Whether war will happen is still an open question.
Saddam is cooperating with the inspectors, if slowly. Many capitalists,
here and abroad, correctly fear that war, even victory, would
create more political problems, here and worldwide, than Washington
could possibly solve.
The anti-war movement gathers strength
everywhere. But whether it has enough momentum to stop the war
is another matter. Certainly USLAW's. 'economic populist' pandering
to bureaucrats who in turn pander to the most backward elements
in their union isn't the way to go forth.
If anything, it underestimates the ability
of the ranks to learn in a crisis. Instead of portraying an Iraq
invasion as a diversion from the good 'war against terrorism,'
USLAW would do better to talk about Bush and the oil industry.
Most bus drivers aren't brilliant. But they know enough about
gasoline prices to understand a basic explanation about how the
war is about oil. And of course even the talk show hosts are
beginning to talk about the fanatic Christian fundamentalists
and Neo-Con Zionists that surround the ex-town drunk as he rushes
forward to political disaster, whether there is or isn't a war.
Lenni Brenner,
editor of 51
Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis, can
be reached at BrennerL21@aol.com
Yesterday's
Features
Bill and Kathleen Christison
On
the Road to Iraq: First Stop Amman
Uri Avnery
An Approaching Emergency
Ray Close
A CIA
Analyst on Forging Intelligence
Michael Neumann
An
Unfounded Rush to Cynicism: a Rebuttal of Perry Anderson
Gary Leupp
Bush's
"Press" Conference
Kurt Nimmo
Perle's Slurs: Smearing Sy Hersh
Terry Jones
Bush
Goes in for the Kill
CounterPunch Wire
Vietnam 2 Pre-Flight Check
Alexander Cockburn
What Will the US Find If It Invades Iraq?
Robert Fisk
Blix
Undermines Bush War Plan
Website of the Day
The
Blix Report
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